Collateral Damage in the War on Anonymity

From warrantless wiretapping to ever-present surveillance cameras, our world is right now in the midst of a long war on anonymity.

In the media and political arenas, we've seen paparazzi culture famously fetishize the outing of anonymous iconoclasts, from Watergate's Deep Throat (Mark Felt) to a top CIA agent working on weapons of mass destruction (Valerie Plame). Likewise, in our communities, we now know that we are almost always being monitored in highly trafficked parks, malls, airports and stadiums—and as Slate recently reported, we may soon have apps on all of our smartphones that let us identify random faces in a crowd.

Teeming with incognito bloggers and commenters, the Internet seemed to be the last bulwark against this trend—a rare public space that let us broadcast opinions from the shadows. But even cyberspace will likely be exposed to the white-hot spotlight of identity, as a new campaign for disclosure now starts in earnest.

Launched in response to cyber-bullying, this campaign made headlines last month when Facebook executive Randi Zuckerberg declared that "anonymity on the Internet has to go away." Her statement echoed that of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who'd previously called for "true transparency and no anonymity" on the Web.

As advertising corporations always seeking new information about their users, Facebook and Google have an obvious financial stake in these positions. Regardless of these firms' particular motives, though, they set standards for the entire Internet. So when their luminaries declare war on anonymity, it's presumably a fait accompli.

Thus, the key question: Will the end of Internet anonymity be good or bad for society? Probably both.

The big potential benefit of users having to attach real identities to their Internet personas is more constructive dialogue.

As Zuckerberg and Schmidt correctly suggest, online anonymity is primarily used by hate-mongers to turn constructive public discourse into epithet-filled diatribes. Knowing they are shielded from consequences, Internet trolls feel empowered to spew racist, sexist and other socially unacceptable rhetoric that they'd never use offline. Compare a typically friendly discussion on the non-anonymous Facebook with the usual flame wars that dominate anonymous comment threads, and you'll understand why a new Zogby poll shows that most Americans believe anonymity makes cyberspace less civil. Ending that anonymity, then, probably guarantees an online world that is a bit more cordial.

The downside, though, is that true whistleblowers will lose one of their most essential tools.

Though today's journalists often grant establishment sources anonymity to attack weaker critics, anonymity's real social value is rooted in helping the powerless challenge the powerful. Think Wikileaks, which exemplifies how online anonymity provides insiders the cover they need to publish critical information without fear of retribution. Eliminating such cover will almost certainly reduce the kind of leaks that let the public occasionally see inconvenient truths.

Encouraging civility while preserving avenues of dissent is a tough balancing act, and the core debate over whether one should have a right to anonymity in public spaces is long overdue. However, it comes with a danger—namely, that legitimate arguments for disclosure will be expanded to justify illegitimate spying on private interactions.

If you think that's farfetched, recall that this is precisely what happened in Congress last month, when a House committee moved forward a proposal forcing Internet service providers to keep logs of all online activity by their users.

Clearly, if it becomes law, this legislation would undermine not just anonymity in public spaces, but privacy in general. Should it succeed, we may achieve transparency, but at far too high a cost.

David Sirota is the best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at davidsirota.com.

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David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books "Hostile Takeover" and "The Uprising." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com or follow him on Twitter @davidsirota.

Comments (1)

"People are only as honest as what they think they...

"People are only as honest as what they think they can get away with" was told to me by a woman who grew up in (white) Wisconsin, and lived life in Pacific northwest, and Alaska's seat of politics. -- Anonymity works exactly to that point.

The birth of the credit bureaus was born out of that same idea. After a dishonest consumer "screwed over" a lender by not paying for the goods they bought on credit, how can that lender who was burned share that info with their fellow business owners? It was all too easy for a consumer who was taking advantage of "benefit of the doubt" to simply go to another bank, store, or car dealer and screw them over too. -- Result, we hate the credit bureaus because it leaves us stuck with our past mistakes, or past bad luck.

"online anonymity is primarily used by hate-mongers to turn constructive public discourse into epithet-filled diatribes" -- How true, just read the trash put up by some during the 2010 election, or currently put up today by others. I only started writing back because of the well-written but hateful comments. The reason many bloggers stay anonymous is because most any employer will oust a person who exercises their voice publicly, especially if it is not in full support of the advancement of their business at the expense of anything else. As Alberta Darling hinted Tuesday night, we cannot have dissent among our ranks. She was clear, the losers need to shut the hell up!

Look at spending on campaign ads, both "paid for by (candidate's treasurer)" and "paid for by (special interest group)", but it does not stop there. The Citizens United ruling of early 2010 (about "Hillary: The Movie" in 2008) now says we cannot limit the money, cannot even identify who the money is coming from. It's all about anonymity of hard currency and political influence, not just about "hate-speech" in political blogs. "Follow the money" works, now the puppet-masters of our voting opinions have even stopped that. While speech remains free, getting that speech to the voters still costs money.

Back to "life on the street" and smartphone apps that can ID a person from a face-shot -- This is a MAJOR plus for those who say things like "All blacks look alike". The whole game of life is in sizing up a persons character at a glance, we hate those who can "pass" as an honest, upright citizen just by dressing and speaking well. We do not want to pay the costs of hiring a PI to get to the truth of a person's character. -- The whole point is in having the info that gives us a reason to say no before entering into a deal, especially because we are (currently) not allowed to say no based on race, gender, age, creed, the obvious things seen by looks. The small business owner needs this to know who NOT to hire, who NOT to give a raise or promotion to. The retailer needs this know who NOT to do business with, who NOT to allow in the store.

Point being... that all this identification is designed for only one reason... not to empower us to say yes, but to empower us to say NO... legally. That is how lack of anonymity will be used.

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